"If these allegations are found to be true, Roy Moore must drop out of the Alabama special Senate election", said Sen.

Presuming that Moore or the stateGOP withdraw his nomination, the challenge for McConnell and other Republicans will be to figure out what candidate would run in Moore's place - and how to win an election in which it is too late to replace the former judge's name on the December 12 ballot.

Mobile County GOP Chairman John Skipper, meanwhile, said he believed the accusations reported by the Post were "bunk" because if they were true, Skipper said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) - who opposed Moore in the state's Republican primary - would have publicized them.

Moore is on the ballot in December, facing Democrat Doug Jones for the Senate seat vacated when Jeff Sessions became US attorney general. During a second visit to Moore's home, Corfman told the Washington Post, Moore removed his and her clothes, touched her over her underwear, and guided her hand to do the same over his "tight white" undergarments. "There's nothing wrong with a 30-year-old single male asking a 19-year-old, a 17-year-old, or a 16-year-old out on a date". Corfman says she asked Moore to take her home, and he did. He offers to watch over the girl while her mother goes into a child custody hearing.

"I have prayed over this", she said.

"I wanted it over with - I wanted out", Corfman tells the Post.

The legal age of consent in Alabama is 16, and was at the time of the alleged incident, with Corfman, when she was 14.

The women, who spoke on the record to the Post, said Moore asked them out on dates while serving as an assistant district attorney in Gadsden, Alabama.

All four were quoted under their full names by the newspaper, and other witnesses confirmed they shared their stories with them at the time.

A news report published Thursday by the Washington Post described a sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl initiated by Moore when he was 32.

Moore prevailed over several Republican opponents in a closely contested primary that saw U.S. President Donald Trump, McConnell and most establishment Republicans back the incumbent, Luther Strange.

Moore was removed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court twice - once for refusing to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments he had installed in the state courthouse, later for barring clerks from issuing same-sex marriage certificates following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized them.

In response, the Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler has said that Roy Moore is like the parents of Christ.

'I'd say, 'You're too old for her. let's not rob the cradle, ' ' Martha Brackett remembers telling Moore. Moore is facing Democratic nominee Doug Jones, an attorney who is trailing by a small margin in most polls. In fact, just two days ago, the Foundation for Moral Law sent a retraction demand to the Post for the false stories they wrote about the Judge's work and compensation.

The Christian conservative's team said in another statement about the allegations, "this garbage is the very definition of fake news and intentional defamation".